1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a protective cover for covering the end of a rod, and more particularly, to a protective cover used during construction for placement over the projecting end of a steel reinforcing bar.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, concrete structures, such as office buildings or highway overpasses, include steel reinforcing bars, oriented in both horizontal and vertical directions, which are placed in concrete forms prior to pouring the concrete. During construction, the steel reinforcing bars pose a safety hazard. For example, workers at grade level might be stabbed or gouged by the exposed ends of the reinforcing bars. Even worse, workers above grade, such as workers on scaffoldings, might fall and become impaled on top of vertically-rising reinforcing bars.
In an attempt to reduce injury to workers, conventional bar guards, such as the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,378, have been used to protect workers from being scraped or stabbed by the projecting end of reinforcing bars at grade level. Although adequate for protecting against such scrapes and stabs, those conventional bar guards were not designed to, and do not, protect against the substantially-greater forces involved when a worker falls onto vertically-rising reinforcing bars.
Realizing the dangers presented by exposed ends of reinforcing bars at construction sites, and recognizing that conventional bar guards do not prevent a worker from being impaled, divisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (OSHA) have enacted safety standards requiring the use of protective covers for covering the exposed ends of reinforcing steel bars, so as to further protect against injury and impalement. The standards are intended to protect workers, working at grade or above grade, who are exposed to reinforcing steel or other projections, against the hazard of impalement by requiring that the exposed end of each reinforcing bar be covered with a protective cover.
The OSHA standard requires that: the surface of the protective cover shall be no smaller than a 4-inch.times.4-inch square; the protective cover shall be made of wood, plastic, or similar material; and the protective cover shall be capable of withstanding, at a minimum, the impact of a 250-pound weight dropped from a height of ten feet without penetration failure of the cover. This OSHA standard for protective covers is believed to provide substantial protection for workers at grade and above grade on construction sites.
In order to meet OSHA requirements and address the need for a protective cover which would not only prevent gouging and scraping but also impalement, the assignee of the present invention invented two types of protective covers, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,381,636 and 5,729,941, which comply with the OSHA standards.